The fight against HIV is progressing in patches and the National AIDS Plan is applied in a very different way in the territory.
The latest data available, relating to 2019, show that only half of the Regions have implemented it with regional resolutions and there are many delays in terms of communication, access to tests and patient care paths.
A slow start that still reveals different regional speeds and priorities.
These are the results of the Open-Aids Plan Regional Implementation project, carried out by the SDA Bocconi School of Management with the contribution of Gilead Sciences, presented during the "HIV 40 years later" event.
In Italy, it is estimated that there are about 120,000 people with HIV, of these about 100,000 have been diagnosed (83%) but the remaining 20,000 (17%) are still waiting to take the test, with the risk of aggravation of the infection. and contagion to others. From the Bocconi monitoring on the state of implementation of the National AIDS Plan 2017-19 it emerges that, in 2019, only 38% of the Regions had the Regional AIDS Commission active, only 37% had carried out ad hoc communication campaigns. While only 28% had defined a Diagnostic Therapeutic Assistance Path (PDTA) for HIV.
"The Covid-19 pandemic can no longer represent an obstacle to the treatment of other diseases, especially chronic ones such as HIV, which are most affected by delays in taking care", comments Claudio M. Mastroianni, president of the Italian Society of Infectious Diseases and Tropicali (Simit) and full professor of Infectious Diseases at Sapienza University of Rome.
"The implementation of the Plan - he concludes - is not only desirable, but necessary to face the challenges of HIV which requires a strengthened model of taking charge, from diagnosis, to access to treatment and management of follow up, integrating the specialist centers with the territorial network ".
In collaboration with:
Gilead
